


bruises are roses with skewed vision

by hiroshimalovers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 06:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3110057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiroshimalovers/pseuds/hiroshimalovers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is an aching back and whispers of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bruises are roses with skewed vision

**Author's Note:**

> Please see warnings. Crossposted to tumblr.

Enjolras appears as a god, a painting. He is sculpted from marble and emblazoned with gold and Grantaire loves him with all the strength that a broken man can. He loves him with wildfire and ocean tides, all harsh lines and destruction, and Enjolras takes it with a haughty look in his eyes and a closed fist. 

He lights Grantaires love ablaze and whispers what he knows he wants to hear. It is not love in itself but manipulation of soft notes and sweet drinks. It is a forced thigh between two others and open mouthed gasps. It is fractured bones and cracked walls and rows of empty beer bottles. Enjolras breathes in. Grantaire wheezes with pain when he tries.

(years ago, there was a child who coughed and coughed and swore never to feel that way again. he broke his promise)

Grantaire wishes for a dream as he loves, with his piercing blue eyes and rough, rough, hands, as he is shoved back against a wall, open mouths pressing against each other. He is somewhere else as they claw off clothing, and in some way it is known that this is not love, that empty coffee mugs and bruised hips do not make a relationship. He ignores it, forgets the cold feet and long fingernails, and instead lives in a haze of worried friends and dull pain,and pretending to forget. 

There are days, weeks, months when Enjolras does not glance at Grantaire but a single drink too many or a particularly terrifying argument will lead to rumpled sheets and scratches on Grantaire’s dark back. He tastes blood and pretends the stinging in his eyes is from lack of sleep. He pretends this hasn't happened all before in a million different places. 

(he pretends that this isn't the same love his father offered his timid mother with her Koran and veiled face, the same love that led her to a river and his father's broad shoulders to shake with laughter when a neighbor brings her, limp, to their doorstep) 

(he pretends he doesn't have his father's shoulders or her eyes) 

(he pretends that this is something different) 

As Enjolras kisses him harshly against strong oak and yells at him from the head of a table, Grantaire drinks and thinks about a past in different country and how nothing really changes. He tells himself things have to have changed. He tells himself he has to have changed. 

Cracked ceilings and chipped paint reflect boredom but to Grantaire, they are fear and exhaustion and the dank smell of day old sex. There is a shadow of Enjolras in the ripped sheets and nothing else but whispers of pain. Grantaire rolls over and wonders how it ever got this far, how his heart always manages to beat in the wrong way. He wonders how he became almost alright and then tripped and fucked it all up again. 

(he is not the child cowering under a desk. He is not the monster threatening above) 

It's not a relationship. It's a kind of exhaustion and destruction curved into hipbones and scars and Grantaire almost wants out of Enjolras and his twisted smiles. He's addicted though, to the half love and aching shoulders and he thinks that maybe, maybe he is the leftovers. 

Maybe he can’t be the leftovers.


End file.
